It occurred to me that I owned a toy of every unique character released in the various Animated toylines, save just two guys. I'm not talking about the same-character redeco stuff, no. But other than Activators Ramjet (Japan-exclusive) and Black Rodimus (Japan-exclusive), I kinda had them all. (There is an "additional Starscream clone" toy also from Japan that is sort of maybe a new character as well, but it's kind of nebulous and he doesn't get a bio or anything, so I don't really care.)

Black Rodimus came out last week, so I figged, hey, why not, let's get 'im. What's his story? Surprise, Megatron cloned Rodimus Prime using Starscream's cloning technology. How novel! Y'know, one of those experimental prototype things, to see if it'd work on a larger scale. But whoops, evil Rodimus just wants to take over the Decepticons, and he's actually pretty good at it, so now Megatron has a problem on his hands. The end! It's a dumb story, but it's a story, and so it's a hole in my collection that my brain requires me to fill.

What, never seen a giant crossbow on the roof of a car before?

Black Rodimus is exactly what you'd expect in a "black repaint' Rodimus toy. He's basicallyShattered Glass Rodimus colors. And to that end, it would have been suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper awesome if they'd given him Shattered Glass Rodimus's goatee. I mean, c'mon. Evil clone! But no. Black Rodimus's purple is metallic, like most of the rest of Japan's Animated line, which doesn't look tacky on this toy, thankfully. And it's a good toy all around, regardless of color, so it's nice to have another of it. Buying an evil clone guy would have been a much tougher decision if it were of a toy I didn't like.

I'll of course be getting a third iteration at BotCon next month, when they give him a new head and call him Breakdown. I'll welcome that, too. Again, good toy.